Smokies Trip Report

“Yea a little late (we went in late april), but better late than never.

Friday - Left at 5 AM, stopped at REI in Atlanta around 9, where my friend retired his school backpack and got a REI backpack. I bought a pack cover for my Terraplane. REI, fun as always. Left about 10, got to Smokies entrance around 2, stopped at Newfound Gap and I showed my friend what route I had planned, and he proceeded to utter a few curse words as I showed him the elevation changes. Anyway, drove to Elkmont campground around 3. Suited and packed our packs for about 30-45 minutes. Hit the trail around 4. Started on Little River Trail for 3.4 miles, made good time, did it in just under an hour. Then hit Goshen Prong Trail around 4:55 for a long 3.3 miles to Campsite 23, got there around 6:30-6:45, it was getting dark. One other guy there coming back from the AT. Nice campsite, set up tent. We had Velveeta Macroni and Cheese for Supper (yummy). Talked to the other guy for a few minutes, then went to sleep.

Saturday - Woke up around 10 (forgot to set my watch for DST time change). Granola bars for breakfast, headed out around 10:30. 4.4 Miles left on Goshen Prong Trail to the AT. Whoever rated this a moderate (Falcon Smokies book) should be forced to actually hike it. The last 4.4 miles is definitely strenous. I started feeling really sick around 12:00, and made horrible progress, I could rest for 15 minutes and still not feel rested, I had plently of water, and I puked like 5 times. About 3.5 miles into the trail (around 3), I just could not move, my knees just locked up completely, I could barely walk without my pack. So my friend just told me to take it easy and rest, so I just layed on my pack for an hour or so, while he filtered water and looked around. I took some Ibuprofen, that made it a little better, so I hobbled the last mile to the AT, and was grateful for whoever put a nice resting log there. My friend went back and got my pack while I rested there. I puked a few more times, and started feeling better. I have no idea what I got, but it sucks when you're on the trail. So I still was feeling pretty bad, and the original plan was to be at Mount Collins shelter by the end of the day, which was definitely not possible now. So we decided to just stay at Double Spring Gap shelter, just about 0.7 miles to the west. Got there about 6:45, and was still feeling bad, so just rested for a while, it felt great to lay down. There was 3 hikers already there, thruhikers doing the AT. Dig Dug as I recall was the only one I remember there, they were cooking supper. My friend consumed Beenie Weenies for supper. In about an hour, I started feeling tremendously better, and ate some granola bars and jerky. Publix arrived (another thru hiker) a little later. A couple of weekenders arrived soon, college guys from Knoxville, who provided every one with cigaretes. Night Rider arrived soon with another guy (forgot his name, japanese guy). They all chilled for about an hour til 8:00 when Publix, Night Rider and another guy headed out. We sat around the fire for a while til about 10:00, when another thru hiker came up, he said he just ran into a wild hog, who scared the crap out of him. He stayed for about 15 minutes. I was feeling great, being as I had pretty much rested half the day, and got over whatever I had. So we packed up and decided to hike with him to Clingmans Dome, 3.3 miles. It was our first night hike, which was awesome, great views of Gatlinburg and cherokee. Made great time, about an hour, all uphill and rocky. Arrived at the summit/tower to find about 10 other hikers at the observation deck, so we put out our sleeping bags and stayed there. The wind was relentless all night long, probably 40-50 mph gusts. Got hardly any sleep, thought it was an interesting experience.

Sunday - Got up around 6 AM, before the rangers decided to come up, packed up really fast. Hiked the half mile down the Clingmans dome road to the parking lot, cleaned up, refilled water bottles. Then hiked the 0.5 mile Clingmans Dome bypass trail to the AT, which was about 5x harder than the road which leads straight up there. Made a very stupid decision, apparently did not check the map, we were supposed to hike to Mt. Collins shelter, but went the wrong way (this is the way we had come up last night, but of course we couldnt see anything, so we didnt know it was the same route). Ended up right at Double Spring Gap shelter, felt really stupid. I didn't really feel like hiking back up to Clingmans dome, so we decided to head back to the truck, 11.7 miles back, though all downhill, the route we had come up. Started around 9, made it back around 1:30. Found my football that evidently fell out the day before. Nice to be back at the truck. Drove to Gatlinburg and had a gigantic Quiznos Sub, which was great. We were supposed to hike to Mt. Leconte tommorrow, but feeling very 'uberish' from hiking the night before, we decided to hike today. Stopped at Sugarlands Visitor Center for a little bit. 99% chance of rain. Got at the alum cave trailhead at 6. Seriously downsized our pack. No tent, left half the food we took. Headed out about 6:30 for a very interesting hike up. Meet one hiker 15 minutes into the trail. Around 7:15 it started raining, 15 minutes later it started lightning and thundering, which really was scaring us. The lightning was pretty close, maybe 4-5 miles away. Kept hiking. Got dark soon. Discoverd my friends light was dead. So we had only my light, with one led, that was dim. Put our ponchos on, and found out his was torn in half ('ozark trail' ponchos, go figure). Wearing cotton of course. Gave my friend an extra shirt of mine since his tshirt was soaking wet. It was probably in the 40's and I was pretty worried about hypothermia, told him to keep as much of the poncho over his head as he could. Rain was getting worse, and rocks were slippery, which is definitely a bad thing when there are 1000 foot dropoffs to the side. Thank God for the cables. We stopped for a while, my propane lantern I had brought was broken (mantle), but i patched it up, and got it working, which really saved our ass. A little bit of heat and about 100x the light of my led. Made much better progress then since I didnt have to go first across a rock pass and turn around and shine the light for him. Finally around 10:30, I knew we were on the ridge line, the trail was basically a stream, saw leconte lodge's lights (pretty creepy when you cant see anything else and all of a sudden in the wilderness you see 15 lights in the distance). 0.3 Miles to the shelter. Made a mad dash to it. Right as we got there it started a torrential downpour which lasted all night long. One hiker was staying there. Made hot choclate, very good. Went to sleep and sleep very good that night.

Monday - Woke up about 9 to rain. Still pouring. Talked to the other guy for a while, in about an hour it stopped raining. Packed up, headed out to Leconte Lodge, go there. Gave us hot choclate and rolls, which were great. And oh yea, propane heat, praise the lord. Signed in (we were staying there tonight). Very cloudy so no good views at the moment. We had 6 other people coming (of course, they didnt want to come for the 'real' hike, they came up that morning), they got there around 2, nice to see some familiar faces. Got in our lodge (the 2 bedroom one), it was great, Leconte lodge is just an awesome place. Told em about our journey up to this point. Messed around for a while, I hiked up to Cliff Top, too cloudy. Maybe about 5:30, the clouds settled below Mt. Leconte so it looked like we were on top of the clouds, which was just an awesome view. Cleared off somewhat for maybe 5 minutes. Supper bell. Mad rush to the mess hall. Food was great. Went to the cabin. Got an emergency phone call from my uncle and we found out my uncle (another one) got killed in an accident, which really kinda ruined the trip, it was about 8:30, it was about 30 degrees and there was no way we could reasonably hike back. So went back to our cabin and got a good nights rest.

Tuesday - Woke up around 6. Packed up, breakfast at 7:30 at the mess hall. Once again, great food. Headed out a little after 8 on the Bolevard Trail (8 miles to NF Gap), got some snow flurries for a couple of hours on the trail which was nice, but no views. Thought it was all downhill, but ended up being about half and half. Got the 6 miles to the AT junction at about 10:30, 2 miles to NF Gap. One of our guys ran ahead and hitched a ride to Alum cave trailhead to get one of the vehicles. The AT was pretty crowded with tourists, being so close to NF gap. Saw a thruhiker we had met Sat. Finally got back to the vehicle around lunch. Stopped at McieDee's in Cherokee and replenished our Calories. Then headed home. Overall it was a great trip, learned a lot, and defnitely will be back.”

“* smiling *..

I love the Goshen Prong.. but yeah.. I can't speak for the Falcon book, but the 'little brown book' calls it like it is.. a killer at places.. :)”

“Yea I found that out. The Falcon book is not coming on the next hike, not to mention it weighs about a pound itself. Where do ya get that brown book anyway?”

“Sounds like an awesome time...for the most part. Extended weekends always make for great trips.”

“Yea it was the best hike I have been on.... yet. ;)”

“You did quite a bit. Nice going.”

“That's a great hike, Alum Cave to the Blvd. Mt Leconte is a great mountain.”

“Hiking Trails of the Smokies, published by the Great Smoky Mountains Natural History Association. ISBN 0-937207-15-2.”

“Cool thanks. Yes this trip really got me interested... earlier trips it took like a month before I actually wanted to go hiking again, but I really didnt want to leave this time. I'm hoping to do a AT section hike later this year... I'd like to to Springer to top of the Smokies (Mt. Cammerer ??)”

“Come hike with us next weekend. That's a really nice section of the AT.”

“Where ya goin? I need to get some gear soon (tent, sleeping bag, boots are top priority)”

“Roan Mt -- check out the trips page. Karo is coming in from the South, and I'm coming in from the North.

We are meeting at OverMountain Shelter Saturday night.”